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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24740344">all of my goodness is gone with you now</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualthorin/pseuds/spiraldistortion'>spiraldistortion (bisexualthorin)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Ghosts, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:55:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,880</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24740344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualthorin/pseuds/spiraldistortion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The cost of knowledge is high, and Barnabas Bennett seems to always pay the price.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Barnabas Bennett/Jonah Magnus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Associated Articles Regarding One Jonah Magnus, Jonah Magnus Week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>all of my goodness is gone with you now</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>IT'S JONAH MAGNUS WEEK!!! </p><p>This is day one, the prompt for which was: Jonah/Barnabas, domestic (sfw), ghost AU (nsfw). I uh... well. I didn't do a good job at either of those things lmao.</p><p>Title from Shrike by Hozier</p><p>All of my love and thanks to the Jonah server &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Barnabas Bennett opens his eyes and realizes at once that he’s no longer alone.</p><p>Bathed in the pale morning light that streams through the window, Jonah looks peaceful, soft in the way he only ever does in in his sleep. Barnabas takes in the muss of auburn curls against his pillow, the spray of freckles across his sleep-pinked cheeks and feels a deep, gentle aching in his chest that he can’t quite place. He’s put in mind of the soft pain of an old, faded bruise, presses on the feeling to recall through the fog of his memory, to understand.</p><p>Overwhelming loneliness. Hopeless despair. Cold, bitter grief.</p><p>These must be the remnants of a dream, he thinks. Some terrible, vivid dream whose details have slipped through his fingers like so many grains of sand, but whose impact remains, palpable even outside the embrace of sleep. Nothing lasting or outside of the ability of a bit more rest to cure. He settles back against the pillows, looking over Jonah’s sleeping form once more before moving to draw him into his arms.</p><p>When his hand passes through Jonah’s side, sinks down into him as if he weren’t truly there, Barnabas is sure whatever nightmare had plagued him had yet to end. He sits up with a lurch, gasping loudly into the quiet of the room, but Jonah remains undisturbed at his side. It’s this, more than anything else, that convinces him that this cannot be real, that he must still be dreaming. Jonah has ever been a light sleeper, quick to wake at even the smallest noise or slightest movement. It’s why he so often prefers to sleep alone, at times sending Barnabas on his way in the small hours of the morning like some thief in the night. Barnabas closes his eyes tight against the panic, suspending himself in the darkness behind his lids as he wills himself calm, wills himself to wake up.</p><p>The next time he opens his eyes, the light in the room is brighter and Jonah is no longer at his side. He raises himself up onto his elbows, disoriented, but quickly finds Jonah on the other side of the room, yawning and shrugging into a robe as he starts his day. Relief washes over him, settling warm and sure in his belly. A dream, then, and over not a moment too soon. He smiles as he watches Jonah settle himself in front of his mirror, huffing and squinting as the morning light spills over his face through the window.</p><p>“Jonah.”</p><p>Jonah doesn’t respond, instead continuing to fuss at the riot of curls that stick up at odd angles from his head. While this in itself wasn’t very odd—Jonah never much preferred conversation at this hour of the morning—Barnabas begins to feel uneasy, remembering his fear from the night before. He sits up straighter against the pillows and tightens his hands into the blanket at his sides.</p><p>“I had the strangest dream last night,” he ventures, hoping the topic would bait him into conversation. While Jonah has little patience for foolishness and flights of fancy, he has always been particularly interested in the contents of dreams for reasons that Barnabas had never truly understood. “I dreamt I couldn’t touch you—that even though you were by my side, you were somehow very far from me.”</p><p>At Jonah’s lack of reply, Barnabas begins to worry in earnest, chest tightening in anxiety and the slow, creeping fear that fills him. He slides from the bed and makes his way over to where Jonah stands in front of the mirror</p><p>“Have I upset you?” he asks. His voice trembles with nerves, and Barnabas can’t imagine that Jonah would be cruel enough to ignore him still, not now that he’s so clearly distraught. “Jonah, are you even listening to me?”</p><p>Barnabas reaches out to grab Jonah by the shoulder—to turn him bodily around and make him meet his eye—but his hand passes right through it, as if Jonah were made of fog, cold and insubstantial. Jonah pauses, narrows his eyes and looks at something over his shoulder in the mirror for a moment before shaking his head and returning to his ministrations. Barnabas remains frozen behind him, stuck staring at the half of his hand still sunk into Jonah’s back, at the length of his outstretched arm before him, and struggles to process what he sees. It looks… it looks <em>illusory</em>; pale, silvery-white, and blurry at the edges, as though he were fading into the space around him. Icy fear rises in his chest as he watches the move and slide of Jonah’s robe, only just barely distorted through the translucence of his arm above it. When Jonah steps away, he’s left with an unobscured view of the room behind his back, reflected in the mirror as if he weren’t standing in front of it at all.</p><p>The panic that rushes over him brings him to his knees, seizes tight in his chest as he reaches his trembling arm forward to press against the mirror where his face should be reflected back at him. The glass is cold and hard and solid beneath his fingers, but it gives him no answers; and when he draws his hand back, there are no smudges or fingerprints left behind on its smooth surface. Not a single trace of him.</p><p>He looks down at himself then, scanning over his torso, his limbs, scrambling to account for everything—making sure everything is there, for whatever new meaning <em>there</em> now holds. Instead of the bedclothes he had expected to find himself in, his hands run over the felted wool of his jacket, the smooth linen of his trousers. He wouldn’t have worn this to bed—hadn’t been so careless as to fall asleep in his day wear since university. But to come awake, fully dressed and invisible to the world would suggest… He shakes his head at the thought, refusing to entertain it. No, there was some other explanation for this. Something perfectly reasonable; something that Jonah could understand and put into words better than he could.</p><p>Scrambling to his feet, he stumbles his way over to the door, making to follow Jonah down the stairs. He finds him in the parlor, sat with his back to the wall at a small table as he takes his tea and reads through the morning paper. He doesn’t startle as Barnabas rushes into the room with a commotion that not even Jonah could coolly ignore, doesn’t look up in greeting or in annoyance or in anything at all as Barnabas looms over him, hovering much closer than would ever be considered acceptable.</p><p>“Jonah,” Barnabas says loudly, to no response. “Jonah!”</p><p>Jonah doesn’t bat an eye. He reaches out to take a long, slow sip of his tea before settling the cup back in its saucer.</p><p>“This cannot be real…” Barnabas mutters, pacing in front of the table and running a hand through his hair. “No, this is a joke. Some elaborate prank played at my expense.” He stops in his tracks, looks over to where Jonah sits, quiet and unassuming as he holds the paper in one hand and twitches the tea spoon against the table with his other.</p><p>“Well, Jonah,” he says, bending down to rest his hands on the table and bring his face level with Jonah’s. A humorless smile pulls at his mouth. “Nicely played. Very amusing. Now, please: answer me.”</p><p>Jonah merely flips the page and continues on reading.</p><p>At the frayed end of his patience, Barnabas brings his fist down onto the table with a shout. “Answer me!”</p><p>The impact sends a small shudder through the table—just enough to rattle the cup in its saucer and send a splash of tea over the rim, though his fist makes no sound when it meets the wood. Jonah jerks back at the movement, spine snapping straight and fingers clenching into the side of the paper as he freezes in place, eyes darting around the room as if to seek out the source of the commotion. Barnabas watches as he slowly sets his paper down and jerkily bends to look under the table, eyes flicking around the room every few seconds as if he were expecting something to jump out and attack him. It should be comical, this dramatic reaction to such a small thing, but Barnabas can’t bring himself to laugh, doesn’t feel the grip of mirth or even hysteria that might have otherwise filled him. No, all Barnabas can feel is the swell hope in his chest, the cool wash of realization that spreads over him as he looks at the small puddle of tea that <em>he</em> caused to spill over the table.</p><p>He may not be able to speak to Jonah—may not even be able to touch him—but he <em>can</em> catch Jonah’s attention. And if he’s still able to do that, then surely not all hope is lost. He will figure this out soon.<br/><br/><br/></p><hr/><p>
  <em>October 22, 1824</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>I have been rather too busy to keep up with this personal journal of late—my workload has only increased as the institute has grown from its infancy into more solid repute, and my time has been better spent focused there. However, something rather curious has been happening lately, and I think it best to make note of it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I have noticed an increase in odd activity around my home. Small noises and movements that cannot be explained by the presence of others; the misplacement of items I have not touched in a great while. These events have been confined almost entirely to those places in which I spend the most time: my bed chamber and my study. Around other parts of the house, I could write this off as being the fault of another, or even perhaps some mere coincidence. Even those things occurring in my bed chamber I could blame on a prying housemaid. But in my study? Locked as it is, and I the only one with a key? Given that no other has unguarded access to that room, as well as the... personal nature of these events, I can only assume that whomever is responsible is trying to send me some message. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>At first, I had taken these actions to be a threat: that the perpetrator meant to unnerve me, to scare me—perhaps even to cause me harm. I am not so naïve as to be unaware of the many men who would see to it that I falter and fail—men who would be glad to see me dead. But in light of the more recent events, I have begun to reconsider. There is… a certain familiarity to these doings, a tenderness present that I cannot deny. Would a man with ill intentions break into my home, only to strew books and manuscripts across my desk—never taking any, simply leaving them behind for me to find? Would a man with violence in his heart come into my room in the night only to retrieve a particular shirt from my dresser and lay it out across the foot of my bed. Would such a man find me at my most vulnerable, asleep in my chair in the small hours of the morning, and drape a quilt over my shoulders, leaving me to slumber on in peace?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No, I do not imagine the one behind these goings on to be such a man at all. In fact, the particular man brought to the forefront of my mind could not be further from that description.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Barnabas Bennett. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Can it be coincidence that the books left on my desk were ones I know to have been his favorites? Mere chance that the shirt left out on my bed had once belonged to him? Perhaps I am simply put in mind of him because it was he who most often found me at my desk late in the night, who ushered me into bed where others would simply leave me be. But he is gone now—dead or worse, I do not know, but gone all the same. It is ridiculous for me to entertain the notion that he could somehow be behind all of this, that he could have returned. Bennett: escaped from the clutches of The One Alone, back only to steal around my home, to haunt my hallways. Absurd.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I do not yet know how to explain this. While concerning, to be certain, these are not the actions of a man seeking violence—but what, then, instead? I am still investigating possible avenues of explanation. In the meanwhile, I will do my best to put Bennett from my mind. It would not do to dwell on the past.</em>
</p><hr/><p><br/>A spectre.</p><p>The word feels like ice water sluiced down Barnabas’ back, and he shivers, feeling more lost than ever. He’s pored over firsthand accounts of brushes with the fantastic and strange; academic manuscripts citing folklore, the dealings of both ancient and modern societies with the supernatural and the divine; musings on the nature of hauntings and possession; treatises on poltergeists and demons and wraiths and all manner of otherworldly creatures. All of which have led him to a single, horrifying conclusion: he is a phantasm, a spirit, an apparition. A ghost.</p><p>Barnabas Bennett is dead.</p><p>He had thought that knowing what had happened to him would have brought some sort of peace or understanding. Instead, it has brought him only confusion, a sense of grief as recollections of his life leading up to his death crash over him like waves against the rocks. He was trapped. Stolen away and stuck in a cold, barren world—a sepulchral prison in which he was condemned to die alone. He walked a miserable shadow of his life. All of the places he lived and frequented, devoid of all the warmth and joy; all of the signs of other people, stripped of the comfort of their presence. Barnabas had never known how dear and vital he had held the company of his fellow man until he was locked in that grey and hollow place, filled with all the solemn silence of a church but without the sense of community; wherein not even his own voice would echo back to him through the empty, open space. He was lost and alone. Set adrift in an unforgiving sea. Abandoned. Forsaken.</p><p>And then he had awoken, tucked into bed beside Jonah Magnus— the man whom he loved; the man who had failed to save him from his doom.</p><p>At first, he had thought that perhaps his letter hadn’t made it to Jonah, that even though the other world could interact with this space in which he was trapped, he was unable to do the same. When he found the letter in Jonah’s desk—tucked into the deepest corner of the desk drawer, hidden away like a secret, like something to be forgotten—betrayal bloomed in his chest, yawned open like a pit that threatened to swallow him whole. He tried desperately to fill it with reasonable explanations, justifications for why Jonah would have received his letter and failed to write him back in kind.</p><p>That day he first woke, he had broken into Jonah’s study to write him a note—to let him know he had returned, that something odd and terrible had happened to him. But his excitement and hope were short-lived, for every time he put pen to paper, the ink glistened bright and wet for a moment before fading away, as insubstantial and invisible as he was. He had felt nothing but hot, bitter rage then, had crushed the parchment in his fist, spilled the ink across the desk in his anger. Later, with his letter in hand, seal broken but still folded closed, he wondered if that had been the case; that if, as soon as it had made it to the corporeal world, his words had dissipated from the page, burned off like fog under the heat of the sun.</p><p>He holds the letter now, and though the penmanship is scratchy and far from neat, the words are clear and the ink strong and dark. Jonah had received his letter, had heard his plea, and still did nothing. Jonah had as good as left him to die.</p><p>It’s like this that Jonah finds him, sprawled out on the floor of the study, surrounded by haphazard piles of books and parchment, despondent. The sound of the key in the lock barely registers, and he can no longer find it in himself to care that he’s left Jonah’s study in a horrible state of disarray. What he doesn’t expect, though, is to hear his name.</p><p>“Barnabas?”</p><p>He jerks upward, knocking a stack of books over in his haste to right himself and look over. Jonah stands in the open doorway, looking for all the world unsurprised, if Barnabas didn’t know better. But Barnabas does know better, and he sees that which Jonah tries to hide: the thinning of his lips, the tightening at the corner of his eyes, the white-knuckled clench of his hand around the doorknob. His eyes are fixed on Barnabas—<em>exactly</em> on Barnabas, not past or through him. Barnabas leaps to his feet and moves forward, eager to be near to someone after so long without.</p><p>“Jonah!”</p><p>Jonah takes a step back at his approach, at the sound of his voice, sudden and loud in the close quiet of the room. It stops Barnabas in his tracks; he had never known Jonah to shrink back in fear, to do anything less than meet everything head on.</p><p>“You’re gone,” Jonah says flatly, denial heavy in his voice, and Barnabas can see the shake in his hand held so carefully at his side. “Barnabas Bennett has been gone for months.”</p><p>“I know,” Barnabas says, keeping his voice low and even. He takes a careful step forward and reaches an arm out into the space between them, palm up and placating. “I know, but I’m here now.”</p><p>“You are <em>not</em>,” Jonah snarls, face filled with a sudden anger. “Look at you. A feeble mimicry of life—a mere shadow of yourself. You died in there, Barnabas,” he says bitterly. “There’s no coming back from that.”</p><p>Barnabas blinks at the man before him, feels a cold fury rise up in his chest, rushing up into his throat.</p><p>“I did die,” Barnabas says quietly. “Because you <em>let</em> me die.”</p><p>The silence that fills the room is deafening in its completeness. Jonah turns his head then, averting his eyes but keeping his chin raised, defiant. A muscle jumps in his jaw as he clenches his teeth, and he straightens his back, drawing himself up to his full height. Trying to collect himself, Barnabas thinks, trying to find a way to work himself out of the blame.</p><p>“Barnabas,” Jonah begins, cool and diplomatic, “you must understand—"</p><p>“You received my letter,” Barnabas says, cutting Jonah off. He catches the way Jonah’s eyes flick to it, laying open on the ground by his desk. “You read it, and still you did nothing.”</p><p>“What was there to do?” Jonah hisses, tossing aside his attempt at appeasement. “You know Lukas—you see now the extent of his power. What could I have possibly done?”</p><p>“You could have asked a favor—”</p><p>“And what, put myself so thoroughly into his debt? When that worked out so well for you?” Jonah laughs, sharp and humorless. “No, I am not so foolish as to position myself into owing so much to a man like Mordechai Lukas.” He steps in close to Barnabas and jabs an accusatory finger into his chest. “You got yourself into that situation, and I was never under any obligation to save you from anything, least of all from yourself.”</p><p>The words should hurt, he knows. They should make him angry; they should break his heart. But all he feels is the prod of Jonah’s finger against his sternum, solid and real. A single, tangible point of contact between him and the living world.</p><p>“You can touch me,” Barnabas says, voice hushed. “I can feel you.”</p><p>Jonah’s brow remains furrowed, mouth still drawn into a thin, tight line, but eyes widened in realization. Curiosity winning out over his anger. He slides his hand over Barnabas’ chest, spreading his fingers wide over the breadth of it.</p><p>“Barnabas,” he breathes, presses his palm over the place where his heart once beat. He looks up into his face, eyes lit up with interest, keen and sharp. “How did this happen? How have you returned?”</p><p>Barnabas laughs, a hollow sound. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he says, gestures at the books spread across the floor. “What do you think all this is about? A bit of light reading to pass the time as I squander here in this—what did you call it—<em>a feeble mimicry of life</em>?”</p><p>“There’s no need to be unpleasant,” Jonah says sourly. He lets his hand drop from Barnabas’ chest, mouth twisting into a scowl.</p><p>“Unpleasant!” Barnabas says, voice full of indignation. “I’ve been stuck here for <em>days</em>, Jonah. I couldn’t speak to you, couldn’t touch you. I could only stand by and watch as life carried on around me, <em>without</em> me.”</p><p>“Barnabas…”</p><p>“But that doesn’t matter, not anymore; not now that you can <em>help</em> me,” Barnabas says in a rush. “It’s my body—I know it must be. Acting as an anchor, tethering me here in this limbo. It’s stuck in that, that <em>place</em>, and I’m afraid that so long as it remains there, I’ll be stuck, too.” Barnabas reaches out, grasps one of Jonah’s hands in both of his own. “Please, Jonah. I need you to bring me back home.”</p><p>Frowning, Jonah looks down, stares at the clasp of their joined hands. Barnabas watches the way his jaw works, the way his fingers twitch and move at his side. He watches him and wonders, not for the first time, at how quick Jonah is to take, and how slow he is to give.</p><p>“What if you stayed?” Jonah asks. He looks up into Barnabas’ face then, eyes soft, vulnerable. “What if, instead, you stayed here, with me?”</p><p>It shouldn’t surprise him that Jonah would ask this of him—that Jonah would ask <em>more</em> of him—but he finds himself shocked all the same.</p><p>“Jonah,” Barnabas says. He shakes his head and smiles, small and rueful. “You know that isn’t possible.”</p><p>Jonah jerks his arm back, and Barnabas releases his grip, letting his hands fall to his sides. He watches as Jonah curls his fingers tight against his palm, brings it up to cradle against his chest, as if he’d been burned.</p><p>“And why not?” he asks, voice sharp. “You’re here now—you’ve escaped death! Why would you choose to leave again?”</p><p>Barnabas laughs, a short, harsh bark in the quiet of the room.</p><p>“You say that as if I chose to leave in the first place—as if I <em>chose</em> to be sent to that miserable place; as if I <em>chose</em> to die,” Barnabas says. “I’ve escaped nothing, Jonah. Not death, and certainly not you and your whims.”</p><p>“Barnabas—”</p><p>“I would have happily spent the rest of my life at your side, but you saw fit to discard me, as if I were some passing fancy, as if I were some <em>thing</em>,” Barnabas says, and the words are bitter on his tongue. “You had little difficulty in letting go then—why not now? Why won’t you let me go?”</p><p>“I’ve <em>tried</em>,” Jonah hisses. His nostrils flare in anger, and his hands clench at his side, white-knuckled and tight. Barnabas watches, and waits.</p><p>“I thought it would be better with you gone, <em>easier</em>. You were a connection I couldn’t afford to have—a vulnerability. So, I let you be lost.” He pauses and shifts his gaze, not quite meeting Barnabas’ eye as he smiles, tight-lipped and humorless. “It all seemed rather perfect, really. A neat severing with no effort expended on my part. And, more than that, you had as good as done it to yourself.”</p><p>Jonah wears bravado well, cloaks himself in it with the ease of a skilled showman. He wields it now, handily, in his oldest, most accomplished act. But Barnabas has known him for far longer, and he has learned to spot the tells: the way his eyes narrow but still flicker; the way his mouth draws into a thin, hard line but twitches at the corners; the way he tucks his chin, so slight as to be near imperceptible, down closer to his chest. Jonah lies—lies to himself, most of all—and it wears at this guise, pulls at the seams. Barnabas wonders if he’ll cast it aside altogether; if he’ll let himself be honest, if only for a moment.</p><p>“But now you’re here, in my home,” Jonah says. He looks up at Barnabas then, and his face is soft and open, his eyes wide and dark. “I can see you again; I can hear your voice.” Jonah reaches forward to run a hand up Barnabas’ chest, slides it up over his shoulder to curl around his nape. “I can touch you.”</p><p>He always seems to finds himself here, caught in the path of Jonah’s passion, his fire. And though it consumed him, Barnabas had loved him; and though it had been his ruin, Barnabas loves him still. He is a fool, he knows: destined to make the same decisions, doomed to pay the price. Extinguished, so that Jonah could burn all the hotter and brighter. But he finds he can’t regret it, as Jonah presses fingers against him, five brands against the back of his neck. And even less can he deny him, as he pulls him down, warm breath fanning over his mouth.</p><p>“I missed you, Barnabas,” he murmurs against his lips. Jonah kisses him then, and sets him alight.<br/><br/></p><hr/><p>
  <em>November 1, 1824</em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <em>Today marks the conclusion of the… excitement of the past several days. An arrangement was made with Lukas to retrieve the bones—a favor for which I incurred a small debt, though one which I have no qualms paying—and I have now in my possession all that tied Barnabas Bennett to life: his personal effects, his correspondence, his moral remains. He is gone from this world, wholly and truly, and I am the sole keeper of his memory.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And so, I and my home return to a sense of normalcy; everything back in their rightful places.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I will admit, however, that one thing continues to weigh heavily on my mind. While it is clear that the appearance of Bennett’s spectre was due to a tethering of his spirit to this world through a strong anchor, the question of why remains a mystery yet. As he told it, he had been present in my home for some number of days, undetectable and fully ethereal; unable to act, save through the manipulation of inanimate objects—an effort he assured me required a considerable expenditure of energy. It is surprising, then, that he should have appeared to me after so long a struggle to exist among the corporeal. </em>
</p><p><em>What could have sparked that change, I wonder—that transition to a form that, while still spectral and otherworldly, could be seen and heard and felt? Could it be called mere coincidence that he was revealed to me then, after he had been so present on my mind? I noticed, too, that the extent of our contact had an effect on his presence: the longer I looked upon him, the stronger and more vivid his form seemed; the longer I spoke with him, the louder and clearer his voice became; the longer I touched him, the more firm and real he grew under my hands. It would appear thus: his tangible remains—his bones—kept him from his death, but they shackled him to a shadow existence, a miserable facsimile of his former self; by contrast, his intangible remains—his </em>memory<em>—kept him tethered to life, and they granted him a physical form, gifted him substantiality.</em></p><p><em>It is clearer to me now than ever the importance of memory, of </em>legacy<em>: to be remembered by one is to live on to them alone; to be remembered by many is to never truly die.</em></p><p>
  <em>Bennett’s remains will be brought to my institute as an artefact for further study. In addition to revealing some insight into the workings of The One Alone and the realm of Forsaken, I do believe that they will offer much worth knowing about the nature of Death and, consequently, the means to escape it. I will say, it is unfortunate that Barnabas Bennett paid the price for this knowledge, but I cannot find it in myself to regret his sacrifice or the part I played in it. I will not apologize for the choices I have made, nor will I cease in my efforts to see and know more. The cost of greatness is steep—not for the faint of heart or the weak of will. Those of us willing and able to accept the price will find ourselves most richly rewarded. We will be paid in kind.</em>
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